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Ancestral Joy: 3-Week Women's Circle


  • Starshine Roots Troopers' Hill Road Bristol, England, BS5 United Kingdom (map)

3 spaces left

Feel the wild celebration of your ancient lineage awakening in your bones

Three weeks of deep ancestral work for women who've already done significant inner healing. Not for beginners.

There's a wild woman in your bloodline who remembers how to celebrate

She lived before shame wrapped itself around female bodies, before joy became something to earn rather than birthright.

This 3-week circle takes you beyond processing pain to reclaim wild ancestral joy. Through sacred boundary work, grief, journeying, ritual and ceremony, you'll meet pre-agricultural ancestors who knew unbroken celebration.

This is a remembering through both grief and joy.

 
I felt vulnerable - yet safe within the group. Due to the guidance of Ruth and her wisdom, I felt comfortable enough to share my vulnerability.

The meditation journey to meet our ancestors was very powerful for me. The images that appeared during this meditation helped me make sense of why most of the women in my family have allowed themselves to be dominated by others.
— Janine
 

WHO ARE YOUR WILD ANCESTORS?

Before agriculture. Before settlements. Before the trauma patterns living in your nervous system.

Your wild ancestors knew joy born from earth connection, strong community, direct relationship with spirit through song, drum, and dance. They celebrated seasons, honoured land as sacred, moved with embodied freedom your recent lineages forgot.

A lot of ancestral healing focuses on recent lineages - grandmothers, great-grandmothers who carried survival, war, oppression. Their medicine is powerful. Their resilience kept you alive. Their trauma lives in your body.

But before that heaviness, ancestors knew unbroken joy.

But you can't bypass the recent ones to reach them.

You honour them, grieve them properly, allow them to rest. This clears the channel so you can reach back to ancient joy. Grief opens the doorway.

Week 1 begins with sacred grief work. Not something to "get through" - it IS the medicine. You learn the practice of honouring and creating boundary.

Week 2, with the path beginning to clear, you journey to meet the wild ancestors in deep ceremony.

Week 3, you learn to bring this work into your life

This circle teaches you the rituals. Gives you the tools. Shows you the practice.

The actual unfolding - the grief work, the clearing, the joy - that continues in your own life, in your own time.

 
 

An altar from a recent women’s circle

Why reach back beyond recent trauma?

Your body remembers. There are generations of inherited nervous system patterns encoded in your cells.

Recent ancestral work is essential - honouring, grieving, creating boundary. But you're not doing it alone.

The ancient well ancestors - the ones who knew joy - can support you with healing the troubled lineage between you and them. They're spiritual elders with the power to transform the lineage, to help the recent dead settle and rest.

The practice: Honour the recent ancestors. Grieve them. Ask them to step aside with love. Then reach through to the ancient ones who can support you with healing the line - including you.

This is why you need both. The grief work AND the ancient joy. They work together.

 
I felt safe and held and it great to sit in circle with fellow wise women who are not afraid of deep soul work.
— Rosemary
 
 
 

Your three week journey

 
  • Honour recent ancestors. Practice sacred grief work. Learn to ask them to step back with respect. Create healthy boundaries so you can reach deeper lineages.

    The grief work:

    • Practises to meet recent ancestors with boundaries

    • Witness their struggles, trauma, survival

    • Ritual of gratitude and grief

    • Daily practices for the week

  • Journey backward through time. Meet wild, free ancestors who knew unbroken celebration. Deep ceremony with drumming, ancient songs, movement. Receive their medicine.

    The ceremonial work:

    • Extended drum journey through generations

    • Back to when your female ancestors were wild and free

    • Deep ceremony: drumming, toning, movement

    • Create personal altar

    • Embody ancestral joy in your body

  • Bring wild ancestral joy into present life. Integrate both lineages - recent ancestors with clear boundaries, wild ancestors with their joy. Create sustainable practices.

    The integration:

    • Weave ancient joy into modern life

    • Practical applications for daily choices

    • Celebration ceremony

    • Personal practices to carry forward

 
 

Who this work is for

Women who have:

  • A Healing foundation - Significant inner work through whatever path has served you: therapy, shadow work, somatic healing, deep personal transformation, spiritual practice, intensive bodywork, or other dedicated healing paths. What matters: you have tools to resource yourself, understand your triggers, and know your capacity.

  • A Readiness to grieve - You know grief is sacred medicine, not something to avoid. You can hold space for tears alongside celebration.

  • Had enough - Done performing. Ready to reclaim their birthright.

    Not suitable for: Women new to healing work, in active crisis, or early trauma processing.

    You don't need:

    • Previous ancestral work, drumming, or circle experience

    • Genealogy or family history knowledge

    • To be "spiritual enough"

    The application process helps us explore your healing journey and determine readiness together - there are many valid paths.

 

The Practical Details

When: Three Wednesday evenings, 7:00-9:30pm, starting 18 March 2026

Where: St George, Bristol, BS5 (address shared during application process)

Investment: £155 (£122 early bird until 18 February)

Includes: 7.5 hours deep work in Circle, tea/snacks, between-circle support, integration resources.

Group size: 8 women maximum

This complements trauma healing but is not therapy.

 
 

About Ruth,
your Space Holder

 

I'm a somatic practitioner, sound therapist, and space holder who guides women back to authentic power through ancient practices and embodiment.

I weave sound therapy, parts work, somatic practices, drum journeying, and ancestral wisdom to create sacred spaces where women reconnect with parts they thought lost. My work honours shadow and light, creating permission to be fully yourself - including wildly joyful - without apology.

I hold space with fierceness and tenderness. True healing requires facing wounds AND remembering celebration. I've walked this path - from corporate burnout to chronic pain to reclaiming the wild woman my ancestors always knew was there.

My work is trauma-informed, body-based, rooted in somatic practice. Grief and joy are not opposites but partners in becoming whole.

 

FAQs

 
  • Women who've done significant healing work , e.g. shadow work, trauma therapy, somatic healing, deep transformation. You have tools to resource yourself, understand triggers, know your capacity.

    Not suitable for: Women new to healing, in active crisis, early trauma processing.

  • Yes. Week 1 is grief work - intentional and necessary. Honour and grieve recent ancestors before reaching wild, joyful ones. Tears clear the channel. Grief opens the doorway.

    Not "getting through" heaviness to reach celebration - grief IS the medicine. Not bypassing - completing the relationship so they rest and you reach deeper.

    This requires prior healing foundation. You need tools to resource yourself, know capacity, recognise grief as sacred.

  • Fill out the application form. I will review and get back to you about organising a 15 minute call to discuss your healing journey, ensure you have the foundation needed, answer any questions you might have, and determine if this fits for both of us. Mutual discernment, not interview.

  • You don't need genealogy. This works at soul and cellular level - your body carries lineage memory. We're reaching back thousands of years to pre-agricultural ancestors. Your bones remember.

  • While we draw inspiration from ancestral traditions, our practices are grounded in the universal human experience. You don't need any specific beliefs to participate or benefit from the Circle.

  • There is on road parking, and several steps up to the healing space. If you have specific accessibility needs, please get in touch.

  • £155 for 7.5 hours = less than £21/hour. Significantly less than therapy, coaching, other healing modalities. You invest in lasting change, ancient practices to carry forward, supportive community on the same journey.

    Super early bird £122.

  • Please get in touch with Ruth who will be happy to answer your questions

 
 
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16 March

Gaia Rhythm: Women's Drumming Circle

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